The Change
The Change

By Laurie Forbes
29 Jan 2003


I have always been normal,
just like you.
I have been able to walk and run.
I have laughed and dreamed.
I have loved and married.
But that changed.

I became a wife.
I became a mother.
I have been a friend.
I lived my dreams.
But that changed.

My last son was born.
He was different than the rest.
He was disfigured.
He was feared.
He was shunned.

I was feared.
I was shunned.
I was not understood.
I was not the same.
I had changed.

I walked or ran away.
I dreamed of what was before.
My laughter became tears.
My love became fear.
I changed.

No one understood the pain.
No one cared to see.
No one wanted to know.
No one dared to ask.
No one wanted the change.

I wanted acceptance.
It was denied.
I wanted to be understood.
No one tried.
I might just as well have died.
   This poem was written a several years after my son Joseph passed away. It
expressed my feelings as I looked back on that time. Some who have read this have
thought that the end was a wish that I had died or wanted to die. This is not the case.
What is expressed there is the idea that I felt like I was not being noticed, after a month
had passed, people seemed to no longer care that I still felt great pain and no longer
noticed. For all the notice people took of my pain, I might as well have been dead. In all
fairness, there was a handful of people who periodically noticed, but for the most part, I
was expected to move on and not bother others with my pain.